AN ASIAN policeman who trained at a Cheshire recruits' centre yesterday launched a claim of racial discrimination against his own force.

PC Jeffrey Sidhu told an employment tribunal he was subjected to a campaign of racial abuse as a trainee officer at the national training centre in Bruche, Cheshire.

Mr Sidhu, 39, told of his ordeal while giving evidence at the tribunal in Newcastle upon Tyne in which he is making a claim against Northumbria Police.

Mr Sidhu's allegations of his treatment at the centre - which do not form part of his claim against the Northumbria force - emerged as he was cross-examined at the hearing.

He said during his time in Cheshire in 1992 he had been threatened and forced to barricade his door each night for fear of being attacked.

Mr Sidhu, of Chester-le-Street, Co Durham, represented himself at the hearing where he was being supported by a number of largely white colleagues.

In a statement submitted to the tribunal, Mr Sidhu also said a criminal prosecution had been brought against him after he first submitted a claim of race discrimination, in order to discredit him. The charge, accusing him of deception, was dismissed.

But Paul Cape, for the police, suggested that Mr Sidhu had been guilty of racism when he made a false claim about a shop worker in 1993.

Mr Sidhu admitted that he had lied over the incident when he had gone to a supermarket while off-duty and threatened a worker who he believed had racially abused his mother.